2016 Pre-season Top 30 Yankees Prospects

by: Ben Embry

Ladies and gentlemen, it's prospect season!  And every high profile baseball publication/website is in the process of issuing their Top 100 overall and top 10 system rankings.  I like to publish my own and have been doing so for the past few seasons.  Before I reveal my top 30 prospects in the Yankees system let me make this disclaimer: I'm not a scout, nor am I pretending to be one.  These rankings do not reflect my personal opinion but rather the collective opinions of publications like Baseball America and ESPN as well as other blogs dedicated to the Yankees such as River Ave Blues and Bronx Baseball Daily.  My only involvement is doing a weighted average of the source material.  Without further delay, here's the top 30 prospects in the Yankees farm system:

Rank	Name	POS	Born
1	Aaron Judge	RF	1992
2	Jorge Mateo	SS	1995
3	Gary Sanchez	C	1992
4	James Kaprielian	SP	1994
5	Wilkerman Garcia	SS/3B	1998
6	Domingo Acevedo	SP	1994
7	Dustin Fowler	CF/RF	1994
8	Rob Refsnyder	2B/LF	1991
9	Ian Clarkin	SP	1995
10	Tyler Wade	SS	1994
11	Jacob Lindgren	RP	1993
12	Drew Finley	SP	1996
13	Brady Lail	SP	1993
14	Miguel Andujar	3B	1995
15	Luis Torrens	C	1996
16	Mason Williams	CF	1991
17	Hoy-Jun Park	SS	1996
18	Slade Heathcott	CF	1990
19	Luis Cessa	RP	1992
20	Kyle Holder	SS	1994
21	Abiatal Avelino	SS/2B	1995
22	Ben Gamel	RF	1992
23	Thairo Estrada	SS	1996
24	Trey Amburgey	OF	1994
25	Jordan Montgomery	SP	1992
26	Leonardo Molina	CF	1997
27	Jeff Degano	SP	1992
28	Chance Adams	RP	1994
29	Dermis Garcia	3B	1998
30	Austin DeCarr	SP	1995

I tend to agree with this board and in fact the first 6 picks match what I ended up with last Fall. I was way low on Fowler, which happens every year in some way or another. Sometimes when you're reading the tea leaves you just mis-interpret how well guys are liked or not liked. I thought two years ago the industry was relatively high on Jaron Long and ranked him 30th in my postseason rankings. Then the pundits weighed in and it was clear that was nowhere close. 

I also do separate rankings for hitters and pitchers, which can be found here. First the hitters:

Rank	Player	Position	Born
1	Aaron Judge	RF	1992
2	Jorge Mateo	SS	1995
3	Gary Sanchez	C	1992
4	Wilkerman Garcia	SS/3B	1998
5	Dustin Fowler	CF/RF	1994
6	Rob Refsnyder	2B/LF	1991
7	Tyler Wade	SS	1994
8	Miguel Andujar	3B	1995
9	Luis Torrens	C	1996
10	Mason Williams	CF	1991
11	Hoy-Jun Park	SS	1996
12	Slade Heathcott	CF	1990
13	Kyle Holder	SS	1994
14	Abiatal Avelino	SS/2B	1995
15	Ben Gamel	RF	1992
16	Thairo Estrada	SS	1996
17	Trey Amburgey	OF	1994
18	Leonardo Molina	CF	1997
19	Dermis Garcia	3B	1998
20	Jhalan Jackson	OF	1993
21	Juan de Leon	CF/RF	1998
22	Nelson Gomez	3B	1997
23	Tyler Austin	RF/1B	1991
24	Miguel Flames	C/3B	1997
25	Diego Castillo	SS/2B	1997
26	Brayan Emery	RF	1998
27	Donny Sands	3B	1996
28	Carlos Vidal	LF	1995
29	Angel Aguilar	SS/3B	1995
30	Alexander Palma	RF	1995

And now, the pitchers:

Rank	Player	Position	Born
1	James Kaprielian	SP	1994
2	Domingo Acevedo	SP	1994
3	Ian Clarkin	SP	1995
4	Jacob Lindgren	RP	1993
5	Drew Finley	SP	1996
6	Brady Lail	SP	1993
7	Luis Cessa	RP	1992
8	Jordan Montgomery	SP	1992
9	Jeff Degano	SP	1992
10	Chance Adams	RP	1994
11	Austin DeCarr	SP	1995
12	Domingo German	SP	1992
13	Cale Coshow	SP/RP	1992
14	Ty Hensley	SP	1993
15	James Pazos	RP	1991
16	Nick Rumbelow	RP	1991
17	Jonathan Holder	SP	1993
18	Jordan Foley	SP/RP	1993
19	Chaz Hebert	SP	1992
20	Nestor Cortes	SP/RP	1994
21	Vicente Campos	SP/RP	1992
22	Caleb Smith	SP/RP	1991
23	Johnny Barbato	RP	1992
24	Nick Goody	RP	1991
25	Tyler Webb	RP	1990
26	Simon de la Rosa	SP	1993
27	Josh Rogers	SP	1994
28	Gilmael Troya	SP/RP	1997
29	Alexander Vargas	SP	1997
30	Luis Cedeno	SP/RP	1994

Any thoughts? Let me know at @thebronxempire on Twitter. I love the conversation. Have a good day!

2016 MLB Draft Compilation Rankings #1 (Top 60)

by: Ben Embry

It's finally that time of year when I issue the first compilation ranking for the next MLB Draft.  It's a little thing I like to do to stay up on who the big names are in the draft pool.  What I do is take rankings from 4-5 different sources that I trust the most on the subject of draft prospects and I compile them into one board.

Rnk	Name	Pos	School
1	Jason Groome	SP	H.S.
2	A.J. Puk	SP	Florida
3	Alec Hansen	SP	Oklahoma
4	Blake Rutherford	CF	H.S.
5	Corey Ray	CF	Louisville
6	Riley Pint	SP	H.S.
7	Connor Jones	SP	Virginia
8	Nick Banks	RF	Texas A&M
9	Delvin Perez	SS	H.S.
10	Mickey Moniak	OF	H.S.
11	Cal Quantrill	SP	Stanford
12	Kyle Lewis	OF	Mercer
13	Bobby Dalbec	3B	Arizona
14	Matt Krook	SP	Oregon
15	Will Benson	OF	H.S.
16	Buddy Reed	OF	Florida
17	Logan Shore	SP	Florida
18	Drew Mendoza	SS	H.S.
19	Nolan Jones	3B	H.S.
20	Ian Anderson	SP	H.S.
21	Alex Speas	SP	H.S.
22	Ryan Boldt	CF	Nebraska
23	Robert Tyler	SP	Georgia
24	Reggie Lawson	SP	H.S.
25	Kevin Gowdy	SP	H.S.
26	Austin Bergner	SP	H.S.
27	Bryan Reynolds	OF	Vanderbilt
28	Nick Senzel	3B	Tennessee
29	Brandon McIlwain	OF	H.S.
30	Kyle Funkhouser	SP	Louisville
31	Avery Tuck	OF	H.S.
32	Josh Lowe	SP	H.S.
33	Jordan Sheffield	SP	Vanderbilt
34	Forrest Whitley	SP	H.S.
35	Jesus Luzardo	SP	H.S.
36	Michael Shawaryn	SP	Maryland
37	Daulton Jefferies	SP	California
38	Chris Okey	C	Clemson
39	Carter Kieboom	3B	H.S.
40	Bo Bichette	3B	H.S.
41	Braxton Garrett	SP	H.S.
42	Dakota Hudson	SP	Mississippi St
43	Zach Jackson	SP	Arkansas
44	Brad Debo	C	South Carolina
45	Zack Burdi	SP/RP	Louisville
46	Dane Dunning	P	Florida
47	David Hamilton	SS	H.S.
48	Matt Crohan	SP	Winthrop
49	Alex Kiriloff	OF	H.S.
50	Matt Manning	SP	H.S.
51	Jeff Belge	SP	H.S.
52	Zack Brown	SP/RP	Kentucky
53	Willie Abreu	OF	Miami (FL)
54	Eric Lauer	SP	Kent St
55	Seth Beer	OF	H.S.
56	Joe Rizzo	3B	H.S.
57	Bailey Clark	SP/RP	Duke
58	Ian Hamilton	RP	Washington St
59	Alexis Torres	SS	H.S.
60	Jake Fraley	CF	LSU

I've finally been doing this long enough that I'm recognizing names of college kids from when they were HS prospects. Not that 3 years is a long time, mind you...but I think it's cool. AJ Puk, Corey Ray, Connor Jones, Cal Quantrill are just a few kids who popped up as HS kids the first time around.  Quantrill is one that easily comes to mind because the Yankees drafted him the first time around. Count me as a big supporter of the idea of redrafting this one.  New York currently has the #20 pick.  That could go up... or go away completely... depending on what happens with the remaining qualifying free agents.

I like to give credit where credit is due regarding the inputs for my compilation. This time around I used ESPN (Keith Law, Eric Langenhagen), MLB.com (Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo), Fangraphs (Kiley McDaniel), and MY MLB Draft. I suggest you check those sites out. Always good content from all.